


A History of Disappearance

by apotropaicsymbol



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Gen, Homelessness, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Maria POV, No Porn, Protective Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Sad, Sweet Venom Symbiote (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 02:15:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21438520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apotropaicsymbol/pseuds/apotropaicsymbol
Summary: Maria looked into the abyss for so long. It was a shock for it to look back.
Relationships: Maria & Venom Symbiote
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	A History of Disappearance

1\. With her father.

“Stop touching me.”

“Stop touching me.”

“Stop _touching _meee...”

2\. With her cousin.

It's cold out. February, maybe March, the part of the year when the world starts to thaw and decay, a pristine winter developing into a muddy early spring. The grass in the back of Maria's yard is free of the snow now, but there are brown streaks in the land where someone put their foot too hard. Maria's on the middle swing, and on the right is Susie.

The girls look almost alike: they have the same angular features, brown eyes. Maria is a little taller and thinner, and Susie is blonde. But sometimes they are mistaken for sisters. They are almost the same age: Susie is three months younger. This makes Susie eleven, Maria twelve.

They are a strange pair. A matched set.

(It's not that often they see each other, but when they do it's like a party. Susie is charismatic in a way Maria isn't, funny and sharp and effortlessly cool. Her eyebrows are plucked until they are thin shadows on her face. Her middle part is ruler-straight and her hair is always shiny. It's work to impress Susie, but that's kind of a thrill – to see if you can be good enough, to say the right things to make her like you. And they always joke about sex. Cannot stop talking about it, in a way Maria never does with her friends – or rather, she used to, but that would always make Linda stare at the floor and Karen stare at her, so...

Maria thinks about sex, sex and being sexy, so much.)

It doesn't matter what they were talking about – wait. Yes it does. Maria had gotten dirt scuffed on her jeans.

“You look like a slob.”

“Hey! No I don't!”

“It's disgusting.”

Maria swings to the side and drags her muddy sneaker down Susie's jeans. “Yeah? Well now you are, too.”

Instantly Susie's teeth are bared, her eyes widened. Before Maria can even process this new and alarming facial expression Susie's arm rises up and connects with the side of Maria's head. Even after the blackout ends there is still a ringing in her ears. The sky is too bright. Susie's mouth moves. Her face is twisted with meanness. “--and I hate coming to this place, we drive an hour so I have to put up with you acting like a leech. Get lost.” She storms away. Maria stands there for a few seconds, unable to think or feel.

She staggers to the basement door, takes the long way into the kitchen.

“Susie hit me,” she informs her mother.

“Oh well,” says Mrs. Walters. “Anyway, Anna...”

3\. With an enemy or friend

The first night is the hardest.

At first she tells herself that it's just one night, one night that she's sleeping in her car. She still has a job, thank God. She has a college degree. She is able of body and sound of mind. And she has a little money left to live on. Until she can find a place to stay again.

Maria tries to make herself comfortable. The back seat isn't quite long enough for her to stretch out on, and it's impossible to make herself the cocoon she wants with only one blanket and her two hands. Streetlights shine into her window.

_Only one night_. Thank God it's not that cold.

She's drifting away when there's a rapping above her. A face stares down through the window. Maria jerks violently, gasps.

“You OK?” the man shouts through plastic. “You need a place to sleep?”

“No!” Maria's already struggling out of the blanket, panic pouring through her. “I don't!”

“I know a place where you can stay! ….I'm not a cop. Are you Emily's sister?”

“I'm _leaving_!” Maria rips her keys out of her purse, drives out of the parking lot faster than she knows is legal. Fuck, please don't let him be a cop. Fuck, he probably got her license plate. Fuck. Fuck.

(But what if he really was just trying to help?)

She feels bad, but not too bad.

4\. With the alien

She can see some of the creatures they keep in the tubes, sometimes; the techs roll them past her cell. They twist upon themselves. Tiny hurricanes. _A tempest in a teapot_, Maria mouths to herself. She can just see them, tucked into artisanal handmade stoneware, ready to leap out and strangle whoever bought them on Etsy. There's your one-of-a-kind experience. There's your shipping and fucking handling.

This is the black one. The cameras are watching her, but nobody else is. It's almost as good as being alone. It was still inside the container, barely rippling as the tube settled into the holder. When the robotic arms lift the glass tube away, it just sits there. A pile of sludge.

“Hello? Can you understand me?”

“Are you alive? What are you?”

It's getting kind of blurry around the edges – there are little bubbled pockmarks in it, like water when it just starts to boil. It still doesn't move, but in a way that seems almost intentional.

_Don't do it_, says a voice in her head.

“Hey _Carlton_ it's not nice to leave a lady without an introduction.” No response from the speakers. Well, fuck you too. The monster, with each passing moment, is looking more and more like a chocolate cake that nobody wants.

Deliberately, carefully, she brings her arms around it, pressing it a little into the crook of her elbow, then drawing it close. It's neither warm nor cool, but she's always cold in the lab.

It feels exactly how you'd think touching darkness would feel.

As Maria settles it closer to her chest, it sprouts – legs? Like a giant spider. They hang over her arms. Now that it's got her, _now_ it decides to attack. Of course. The thing surges up, losing shape, and presses to her face, her neck.

It feels like a million tiny needles behind the skin of her face.

5\. Finale

They walk her back to her cell and she doesn't know where she is.

Above her are white walls, white ceilings. The cells in the LIFE Foundation are not perfectly square; some stuff about ergonomic design, probably. Or something. The lighting is early-morning soft and omnidirectional, probably for the same reasons. Best Practices For Imprisoning Poor People 2018.

Where is her passenger, the lead in her bones?

She's asked herself if it's her fellow victim, her prisoner, or her warden. She never gets the same answer twice.

It's drawn itself out and away from her, now. Shaped itself into something nearly humanoid, powerful but oddly softened. The fake muscles on its fake arms are more suggested than real. It crouches in the farthest corner, looking at her from an angle. Its eyes are a cool, slate-like blue, threaded with a glinting silver. Stained-glass shards, mirrors.

She woke up last night and it was crouching by her bed. Near her calves, close enough for her to reach out and pet its head, but far enough away that she couldn't touch it unless she chose to. It looked at her with a deep calm, a silence that matched the silence inside of her. Its face was not human enough to threaten.

As her head hits the floor, she knows that these memories, too, will disappear.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Constructive criticism is appreciated.


End file.
